


Snapshots

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Memento (2000)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:58:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lenny, against all odds, learns a thing or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first posted June 4, 2003.

"Just take it easy a second, Lenny--"

"Leonard."

"Right, sorry, Leonard, of course. Look, you can trust your own body, right? It's the only thing you _can_ trust these days. That's why the tattoos. So listen to your body, okay, Leonard? That ache in your ass, yeah, that's from me fucking you and that rawness in your throat is from you begging for it--"

He bucks up at that, but I got him, it's okay. He's getting tired. So am I, for that matter, but he's listening now, he's calming down. Sometimes I think he's starting to know the sound of my voice, somewhere inside, somewhere that doesn't need memories.

I press him down into the bed a little harder. "You feel that ache in your dick, Lenny? That's from coming so hard from getting fucked that you passed fucking out, you liked it so much. I know you can feel how much you liked it, baby. Body doesn't lie."

He bucks up again, but he doesn't mean it this time, he's just moving to move. I can see the little wheels turning behind his eyes, he's thinking it out as he stares up at me with those pretty blue eyes all wide.

I let him go, move over and sit down on the edge of the bed. Think about getting some clothes on, because he just reset, by my count, eight times in an hour, and this is the first time I've managed to get him quiet and had time to think about stuff like the fact that I'm still naked.

He scrubs a hand through his hair so it's standing all on end, and says, "Have we done this before?"

I look over at him and smile, but I don't laugh, because the only thing Lenny hates more than having to ask shit like that is being laughed at when he does--and if he gets mad he'll probably start resetting again, and the Lenny who's sitting here with me, naked, his hair spiky with sweat, staring idly at his tattoos and trying to figure me out, is a pretty cool guy. I want to make him last.

"No," I say, "And obviously we shouldn't've this time, either, because it freaked you out pretty big." I wave at the total disaster area that is the motel room, by way of illustration. He's a tidy kind of guy, he knows it wouldn't look like this normally.

Lenny tilts his head, taking it in, and touches his dick, not sexy, just sort of curious, like this is something he forgot. "Not during, though, right?" he says. "I didn't get confused until after."

I nod. "During, you're focused on what you're doing, what I'm doing, whatever, so you keep it together. It's the after that messes you up."

He nods. "But I liked it." He says that in this dubious voice--not any one of the five or six he'd use if he flat-out didn't believe me, all of which I'm pretty familiar with--just, hey, he's right back to having absolutely no frame of reference for how much he could like it.

"Well," I say, "we could try proving it to you, if you want."

He rolls his shoulders, staring at the wall, and then shrugs. "Sure, why not." I touch him then, guiding him as he rolls onto his stomach, and pull open the nightstand drawer, rummaging around for supplies.

When I slip a finger into him, he makes this little surprised noise, and when I hit his prostate he jerks and I hope he didn't just reset and doesn't decide to break my arm, but he just says, "Oh. I--I like that."

I grin. "Yeah, Lenny, I know you do."

 

* * *

It's pretty fucking weird, fucking in a bed that's got Polaroids of you and the guy you're fucking stuck all over the place. But, them's the breaks: Lenny won't always trust me, but he always trusts his pictures and his own handwriting. So I'm fucking him and he's just going to town beneath me--this is the upside of fucking Lenny, he's so gratifyingly surprised by how much he likes it, every single time--and at pretty much eye level is this straight-arm self-portrait. He's got the arm that's not holding the camera wrapped around my neck, in the good way, and he's licking the side of my face and winking, and, whatever, but apparently this is some sort of visual code that's intelligible to every possible future Lenny: this guy is okay, let him fuck you.

I can't remember if he knows my name until he screams it when he comes, but he falls asleep pretty fast after that, so the point is moot.

 

* * *

He rolls onto his stomach and sorta half-laughs, so I slide one hand down his back and around his hip and then I smile--feels like his dick remembers what we're doing here, even if Lenny doesn't.

"I must be learning," he says in this wondering voice, and I slide in one finger and then two, and I gotta say that's easier than it used to be. "Sex must be an even more powerful conditioning agent than food."

I crook my fingers and he jumps and gasps just like he always does. "Hell of a lot more fun than electroshock, anyway, huh Lenny?"

He's nodding as he buries his face in the pillow, arching up under my hand.

 

* * *

He presses himself close to me, frowning, as he flips through the pictures from the nightstand. There's a whole sequence: John G. begging, Lenny having fun with a tire iron, a mangled corpse, and that last one, my favorite, Lenny standing there, grinning, pointing to his chest, pointing to that damn tattoo, international sign language for 'Look what I did! Isn't this great?'

"It didn't take," he murmurs. "I think I must have thought it would, but it couldn't, of course. I don't even remember _that_."

I sling an arm around him, buddies, even though we're lying here all naked and sweaty and stuff--cuddling is traditional, but Lenny's not really into that. He's intense, has to make every second work for him, because the him he is at any given moment is only going to be around for a few minutes more. "You know it can't," I say, carefully. "That's why you keep the pictures."

"I could try again," he murmurs. "If we got rid of the pictures, I could just do it again. Maybe--" he frowns, doesn't look up at me, just stares at the picture--his hand, the tire iron, the blood, "Maybe I could do it more by myself this time."

He's not my friend, I get that, I've always gotten that, so this comes as no particular surprise. More than anybody else in the world, Lenny is always on his own, especially when there are other people around. "Lenny, forgive me, but that sounds kinda risky."

He knows that, I can see he knows that. "You could sort of... steer me, maybe."

I sigh. The weird thing about Lenny and his condition, to my mind, is that he always remembers he's got a purpose. I've been dodging this one for a while, but what the hell, I can work it.

"Yeah, I could. But we'd have to forget this whole thing we got going here. I'd have to just be somebody who was around, if you really wanted to do it on your own. I couldn't be your friend anymore, I'd just end up helping you out again."

Lenny nods slowly. "Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to burn all the pictures." He drops them on the bed and stands up, and while he's looking for matches, I grab that last one out of the pile and hide it. I like that Lenny a lot. He's ready to forget he ever existed, but I don't want to.


End file.
